On the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act that granted blacks the same basic rights that whites had, equality of a sort has finally arrived.

Quinnipiac University released a recent survey today that names Barack Obama the worst president in history, without regard to race, creed or color.

Finally, some people are getting the content of character thing that Dr. Martin Luther King spoke so eloquently about, rather than just the color of the skin thing that the Democrats have relied so heavily on.

President Barack Obama is the worst president since World War II, 33 percent of American voters say in a Quinnipiac University National Poll released today, says the brief accompanying the poll.

He beats George W. Bush by 5 percentage points.

On the plus side only 8 percent of voters think Obama is the best president ever.

"Over the span of 69 years of American history and 12 presidencies, President Barack Obama finds himself with President George W. Bush at the bottom of the popularity barrel," said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the poll.

Obama reached the high water mark in his presidency in June of 2009 with a 59 percent approval rating that again, was largely a measure of how badly Americans wanted the first black president in the history of the country to succeed.

And thats the historic sin for Obama.

Obama never understood that he had a responsibility to treat the presidency with the respect that could leave a legacy for other black politicians to follow.

Instead he allowed an entitlement mentality to cloud his thinking.

What happened to the Barack Obama who on the campaign trail in 2008 wasnt afraid to speak against some of the cultural ills in the black community caused by 300 years of degrading treatment of blacks in America?

First it was slavery, then it was segregation, and now its dependency.

And Obama of all people should be aware that the president sets the tone.

So heres the answer. And again, its a kind of progress because it has nothing to do with race.

Its not because Obamas black that he feels entitled. Its because hes Obama.

Hes enjoyed advantages in America that have been afforded few black people. Hes enjoyed advantages that he wishes to deny other blacks.

And like politicians of any color, deep down hes mostly an opportunist.

So the Obama who lectured the black community is the same Obama who now panders to the understandable anger that simmers in the black community.

One thing that I have noticed about politicians is as they, rise they become more and more just a caricature of themselves, often forgetting who they really were to begin with.

And if anything, the presidency makes the caricature personality become more pronounced, rather than less.

Obama was a caricature to begin with.

So what the hell do you do with that?

You end up with a failed presidency because the man, not the color, cant rise to the expectations.

And so while today we celebrate one righting of historic wrongs, and see a kind of progress in rating Obama on the same scale his predecessors have had applied to them, were not out of the woods.

Because the comparisons to Obama for good or ill will continue as other black politicians reach for the highest office in the land.

Next time maybe the media will concentrate on content of character instead of selling us a caricature.

Constitutional problems with the Civil Rights Act are evidenced by the fact that the act was based on the unreasonably wide interpretation of the Commerce Clause by FDR's activist justices. More specifically, FDR's justices wrongly ignored that that both Thomas Jefferson and a previous generation of justices had clarified that the states have never delegated to Congress, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate any aspect of intrastate Commerce. Using terms like "does not extend," and "exclusively" here is what Jefferson wrote about limits of Congress's Commerce Clause powers.

For the power given to Congress by the Constitution does not extend to the internal regulation of the commerce of a State, (that is to say of the commerce between citizen and citizen,) which remain exclusively [emphases added] with its own legislature; but to its external commerce only, that is to say, its commerce with another State, or with foreign nations, or with the Indian tribes. Thomas Jefferson, Jeffersons Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank : 1791.

Reflecting on Jefferson's statement, here is an official clarification of the scope of Congress's Commerce powers by the Supreme Court.

State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress [emphases added]. Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.

But as a consequence of parents not making sure that their children are being taught the federal government's constitutionally limited powers imo, low-information voters were probably oblivious to the following constitutional problem with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The states have never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the power to protect arbitrary "rights," but only those rights which the states have amended the Constitution to expressly protect. And although the four voting rights amendments, the 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th Amendments, expressly give Congress the power to protect specific voting rights, the 14th Amendment gives Congress the power to protect only but all enumerated rights. This is evidenced by the following excerpts from the post-Civil War congressional record where John Bingham, the main author of Section 1 of 14A had officially clarified the scope of that amendement, and also an excerpt from a Supreme Court case opinion which also officially clarified the scope of the 14th Amendment, reflectinig on Bingham's clarification.

Mr. Speaker, this House may safely follow the example of the makers of the Constitution and the builders of the Republic, by passing laws for enforcing all the privileges and immunities of the United States as guaranteed by the amended Constitution and expressly enumerated in the Constitution [emphasis added].  Congressional Globe, House of Representatives, 42nd Congress, 1st Session. (See lower half of third column.)

3. The right of suffrage was not necessarily one of the privileges or immunities of citizenship before the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, and that amendment does not add to these privileges and immunities. It simply furnishes additional guaranty for the protection of such as the citizen already had [emphasis added]. Minor v. Happersett, 1874.

Again, the feds have the constitutional authority to protect only those rights enumerated in the Constitution by the states. "Rights" not based on enumerated protections were either wrongly legislated from the bench in the name of political correctness, abortion comes to mind, or made by corrupt federal lawmakers to win votes imo.

Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.